Music & samples at the market

Shopping at farmers' markets has upped my happiness quotient in so many ways. Take today's visit to the Western Wake Farmers' Market. I stopped by to chat with market manager Kim Hunter and try her delicious Summer Ginger Quinoa recipe. Many folks stopped by the Redbud Organic Farm booth to congratulate Clay and Nancy on the story in the local paper: Two Ministers on Three Heavenly Acres.

And then, at the end of the row of white tents, I saw a singer and guitarist: Jo Gore and The Alternative. What terrific jazz delivery, rich emotion, and vivid lyrics. I moved nearer into the shade, listening to original songs and a few well-chosen covers. I was smitten enough to buy their CD, from which I learned that guitarist Bo Lankenau writes the music and lyrics. He looks a little like Sting and sounds a little like Leo Kotke, a winning combination. Checking out the website, I see that the full Alternative includes more musicians and that Jo has a glamorous side that she must have thought was too much for the early morning crowd. She seemed beautiful but shy in black knit leggings and top, but she knows what to do with a red dress. Can hardly wait to see a full live show.

What was good at the market today? Figs, melons, peaches, basil, potatoes, eggplant, and even the rare green beans. Tomatoes, eggs, and summer squash were scarce because of the heat. The first winter squash are starting to show up.

Friends, figs, and a new band! Sunshine and samples! Going to the farmers' market can be miles more fun than shopping under the fluorescents at Big Box Mart.

Math Lessons for Locavores?!? Here's a tutorial.

Stephen Budiansky writes a op-ed piece in today's New York Times in which he offers Math Lessons for Locavores. The self-styled Liberal Curmudgeon says takes locavores to task for being "self-indulgent — and self-defeating." He says, "The statistics brandished by local-food advocates to support such doctrinaire assertions are always selective, usually misleading and often bogus." And then he proceeds to do the same thing himself. He's even harsher on his blog about the piece, saying that:

The problem is the way the food gurus have turned the whole "locavore" thing into one of those doctrinaire, authoritarian, and joyless religions that all too often make environmentalists their own worst enemies.

Oh, PUH-LEEZE! I'm a flexitarian who is taking stand-up comedy classes. The folks I meet at farmers' markets and sustainability events are full of humor and flexibility, not to mention great food.

But let's look at the sources for his math lessons. Budiansky cites U of M's Center for Sustainable Systems, but their food-system factsheet on the page he links to urges readers to "Eat Locally" and cites a Leopold Center study showing that "increasing Iowa's consumption of regionally grown fresh produce by only 10% would save over 300,000 gallons in transportation fuel a year."

Old, Questionable Source on Use of Food Energy. Budiansky uses a chart which I have seen many times in anti-locavore works. It says that 31.7% of the food energy is used in household storage and preparation. Even if that is true, it's probably higher in my house, since when I buy locally from a farmer, I reduce or eliminate other energy uses in the chart: 6.6% for commercial food service, 6.6% for packaging material, 16.4% for the processing industry, and even 3.7% for food retail, since the market stand doesn't have air conditioning, coolers, freezers, or even electric lights. Many farmers markets don't even have dedicated building or parking lots. Check out the source document for this chart (see appendix B), you'll see that much of the data is at least 15 years old, before the efficiencies Budiansky himself mentions. The researchers make odd assumptions. The household preparation figure is high because it includes all the hot water used in household sinks. (Don't these people use the sinks in their bathrooms?) The packaging figure is low, since it includes only packaging that could be "specifically attributable to food packaging," but not corrugated boxes and plastic wraps.


Locavores also care about the overall productivity of farms. Dr. Tim LaSalle was the keynote speaker at last year's Sustainable Agriculture conference, run by the Carolina Farm Stewardship. Read his report on The Organic Green Revolution to see how organic regenerative farming systems will "sustain and improve the health of our world population, our soil, and our environment."

Eating mostly locally grown, seasonal food that is low on the food chain can lessen your energy use. It also helps support local farms. I want to live in a country full of local farmers, who take care of the land and help supply food to their communities. They also tend to hire local accountants, doctors, and mechanics, helping support non-farm jobs in their communities. As Wendell Berry writes in Bringing it to the Table: On Farming and Food,

The size of landholdings is likewise a political fact. In any given region there is a farm size that is democratic, and a farm size that is plutocratic or totalitarian. The size of landholdings is likewise a political fact. In any given region there is a farm size that is democratic, and a farm size that is plutocratic or totalitarian.

Newsletter discussion: average meal costs lowest ever, plus 2/3rds local.

What did you think about today's newsletter? I'm thrilled that the average thrifty meal is down to 91 cents ... and that I was able to go 2/3rds local AND green for less than the food-stamp allowance. See the Save Money page for details. This week's recipe is Super-Local Pimento Cheese.

NYT: At Vegans’ Weddings, Beef or Tofu?

Some headlines seem ripped from the pages of The Onion, yet show up in the New York Times. Take At Vegans’ Weddings, Beef or Tofu?

Tofu, of course, you think. Or Harvest Lasagna. Or asparagus quiche. Or a selection of many delicious and festive options, plus cake.

But I was surprised both to read that Chelsea Clinton is a vegetarian and that she served short ribs at her wedding. Short RIBS, such a vividly meaty-meat with all those bones and with echoes back to Eve. Why not pork barbeque? Her groom is Jewish, but evidently the morality of dining choices was not on the menu.

For years, I've had holiday dinner parties, with 50 or so guests, that had all vegetarian food. Many guests never noticed, exclaiming with surprise years into our acquaintance when they realize I don't buy or cook meat. Most people focus on the good food that's there, not what's missing.

I've been spared boorish guests like the article's Mr. Moore, who not only snuck out for chicken parm but brought it back to the wedding! He says, "I know it’s your day, but it’s not all about you. Why have a wedding if you’re going to be like that? Just print a bumper sticker.” By "be like that," does he mean honor the bridal couple's sense of morality? Isn't that what a wedding is about? Of course they should consider the comforts and pleasures of their guests, including not sneering at Aunt Ida's lizard pumps, but wedding guests will not go into meat withdrawal or get kwashiorkor in an afternoon.

What do you think? Should vegans serve honey and dairy? Vegetarians serve meat? Baptists and tea-totalers serve champagne? Various religious serve their versions of unclean food, be it meat, seafood, pork, or something not kosher or halal? Should anyone serve veal or foie gras? Bring your mistress up the aisle too, lest you hurt her feelings?

Where do you draw the line, if there is one?

Eat Local July: 68%, 80%, or 82% local!

Here's the tally: my Taster and I spent way over half our food dollars on local products, mostly directly with the farmers who grew the food. We spent $421 on groceries, with the source breakdown shown in the chart. If you don't include the restaurant meals, it's the classic 80/20 split. If you count eating at all local restaurants as being local, then we're up to 82% local.

This was an unusually expensive and indulgent month by Cook for Good standards:

• Performances. I was taking an improv class in Carrboro, so my Taster and I dined twice at the new and fabulous Vimala's Curryblossom Cafe, once for the "homework" of seeing an improv show and once for my class performance.


• Power lunch. Christine Ramsey introduced me to Melissa Blaisdell at my long-time favorite, the Neomonde Cafe, where we talked about social networking, video, and finding new uses for great old fabric.


• Politics. I met our new city councilor, Bonner Gaylord, for coffee in my conference room at the Cafe Carolina to talk about our Citizens' Advisory Council.


• Pah-tay! For the Fourth of July, we went wild and got TWO four-packs of Boylan natural soda (yumm, black cherry!) and I bought a loaf of bread at the Farmers' Market.


• People-power. Some of the local choices cost more than our usual choices, especially the fresh beans and peas but also cheese, peanut butter, and pecans. Smaller batches, more hand labor.

We learned that it's drop-dead easy to spend 10% of your existing food dollars locally in a great agriculture state like North Carolina. Not so easy for folks in the mountainous or desolate areas we drove through on the Coast-to-Coast Tour. But good choices here are:

• In-season produce. Choose from a huge range of organic, sustainable, and conventionally grown fruits and vegetables at competitive prices.


• Local free-range eggs and RBGH-free milk.


• Local, bulk honey, now at Whole Foods for only $3.99 a pound. I still love honey from Little Flying Cows and better yet, from my neighbor Ziya's hives, but this is very affordable way to get local honey.

But to it can be hard to be local and organic or sustainably grown. Super-delicious, Super-Sharp Ashe County Cheddar Cheese costs the same as my usual organic cheddar from elsewhere, but it's not described as RBGH-free. The RBGH-free butter was too salty and the peanut butter came from conventionally grown peanuts. Brinkley Farms' whole-wheat flour is very fresh and flavorful, but it's not organic. (I'm waiting to hear where it is on the green spectrum.)

And in some categories, it's hard to be local at all. I did find regional, organic sugar, but no local oil, baking soda or powder, tea, dried beans, rice, or couscous. I am growing a hedge of tea plants (camellia sinensis), so soon I'll have very local tea. And I'm thrilled to see that Hmong farmers are growing rice near Hickory, even if they don't yet grow enough to sell.